The Sofa In His Office
by Professor SS19
Summary: Albus Dumbledore considers his protege and spy in his office. Set during OOTP. Oneshot.


_Another long absence - I am sorry, teaching consumes my life and I admittedly let it for I love it very much. This is a meditation on a character I have always been taken with, and all his shades of grey. I hope you enjoy. Thank you for visiting, and thank you for reading if you do choose to read on. ~ Professor SS19_

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**The Sofa In His Office**

Albus Dumbledore returned to his office after a late night musing wandering to find himself…not quite alone. Though the high ceilinged and circular room seemed undisturbed, he could feel the other's presence instantly.

Severus.

Who else would it be?

But not a seething snarling Severus simmering with spite.

This was a Severus of a very different kind. One altogether more human, and yet far too uncommon.

A sleeping Severus.

Albus pushed the door closed as quietly as he was able to, knowing his office well enough where not to tread as to avoid provoking squeaking floorboards. The sofa against the wall was adjacent to a large and ornate bookcase, crammed with ancient parchments and teetering artefacts and altogether delightful manner of carefully curated chaos. The sofa itself was high backed with plush, deep burgundy covering more than sufficient stuffing, and gold framing its outline. The choice of cushions of course did not complement - silvers and blues and greens and one with garish polka dots Albus confessed to be his favourite.

Most of the garish polka dots were currently obscured with dark black hair, unconsciously cast in the carefree pattern that only sleep could bring. For someone whose very existence depended on absolute and total control, at all times, of all things, it was a significant sign of something sentimental.

Albus regarded his sleeping Potions Master with that familiar, regretful and painful twinge that he only experienced in those weakest moments when he knew he could not be observed - by anyone, let alone the subject of such a twinge.

Severus was here because he felt safe here. He felt safe in Albus' office, and the very paradox of that threatened to amuse and devastate Albus all in the same moment. The Slytherin spy asleep on a Gryffindor red sofa, his Ravenclaw wit and his Hufflepuff loyalty knowing it was the best place for him.

Because he felt safe.

Safe from all that threatened him when he left Hogwarts' walls, and yet in the presence of the one person who demanded such threat, weekly, even daily. For it was Albus who would send Severus back into the arms of Lord Voldemort, time, time, time and time again. Albus could do it with such detachment too, allow none of the emotions to play on his evermore ancient features, pretend as though it was just another task in his list of matters and duties and problems to attend to. He could kid himself it was part of the act - should Voldemort ever see any glimpse of Albus' concern, it could lead to Severus being in terrible danger - therefore he had to be so stoic, he had to be so calm, he had to be so ambivalent.

He could tell himself that.

Severus could tell himself that too, and Albus was sure he did - because if Severus believed his protector and tormentor to be that ambivalent, how could he feel safest here, in this office, on this sofa - safe enough to surrender to the most vulnerable of all states.

Albus Dumbledore told a great many lies, every day. To colleagues. To students. To friends.

To himself. For someone regarded as so Light, as so benevolent, as so…Good…he told a lot of lies.

_I have no choice. I wish I did. It is the only way to win the war. There is no one else._

Severus did not appear injured this time. Just exhausted. Was that any better? Driven to the brink by two masters with two very similar agendas, not that Albus would ever admit it to himself. He despised comparisons between him and Lord Voldemort. Methods were not similar if the aim was different, and he could not be any more different to Voldemort in terms of aims. He wanted to preserve the wizarding world while Voldemort wished to rip it apart at its very seams.

Their aims were very different. Adequate justification for the lies.

Albus moved silently to be beside Severus, desperate not to wake him. Solitude was a rarity for the Headmaster of Hogwarts and he found he craved it all the more. He reached down to the carpet to pick up the patchwork blanket that had fallen there. Albus had knitted it himself, pastel colours combined together into something that could be and would be and often was described as homely, caring, benign. Knitted as part of the image Albus had worked to concoct for himself so others would feel comfortable enough to underestimate him - like Tom Riddle, like the Ministry, like…

Severus shifted only so slightly when Albus placed the blanket over his sleeping form, tucking it in down one side between Severus' back and the sofa's back. Was that gesture a lie too? Albus did not want him to be cold, he did not want him to be uncomfortable, he wanted Severus to feel cared for so he would continue to feel able to do his duty.

But that was a lie too.

Albus did care. He cared so much that sometimes he felt it could rip him apart, and other times he wished it would so he no longer had to hide in the light. Albus was exposed in the Light, Voldemort owned the Dark, and Severus stalked in the shadows in between. No one could know - Voldemort could never know - just what the man before him meant to him. Twenty four years had Severus been in Albus' life and although Albus knew every worst part of himself was reflected in Severus…he wanted to believe, so badly, that the best of him was too. He had helped Severus back from the edge so many times - and before, back then, it had been a time of peace, of celebration, of a vanquished Voldemort and a valiant victory, so surely Albus could have had no ulterior motive, back then? He had done it because he wanted to, surely, surely that had been his reasoning.

Time muddied the waters. Any decision now regarding Severus had an ulterior motive, one that Severus was not responsible for, and Albus hated the person who placed Severus under that responsibility. He had been afforded the privilege of watching Severus grow and change and learn and overcome, and transform. Where once there had been a frightened, furious, flawed man now was a brave, bellicose and brilliant wizard who deserved far more than what the present afforded him.

_I have no choice._

_There is no one else._

His words, and Severus' words, blurring into one in his memories of those long and twisted nights where they had strategised and debated and planned and - always come to the same conclusion. There was no one else. Severus had no choice, and Albus had no choice. It was the only way to win the war. Severus had to go, and Albus had to watch, and that was just the way it was, and Albus refused to show any emotion at this, exactly as Severus refused to show any emotion at this. It was just the way things were. It was the way they had to be. It was as simple as it could be.

There was no one else.

How desperately Albus wished there was. Why did he have to sacrifice yet another loved one? Why did he have to be the figurehead, expected to be there, always, fighting and winning and fighting some more and defeating all of the evil this world seemed to create, all the while placing people he cared for in the way?

_There is no one else._

He sat beside Severus on the floor. For a minute, he silenced all the thoughts and memories and whisperings, and listened to Severus' breathing.

His boy was alive. A small mercy. Every time he was summoned, Albus would watch him go, and somewhere deep inside some tiny part of his heart would harden but he was never sure if it was in resolve or defeat. He reached out and let the back of his knuckles brush against Severus' hair, ignoring how they shook - age or emotion, he cared not. Severus always looked the sharp counterpoint of unkempt and immaculate, and his hair was far softer than his appearance belied.

Merlin, how Albus cared for him.

He had no illusions that both of them would survive the war and live out the rest of Albus' days in comradeship and camaraderie at Hogwarts, and then that Severus would eventually succeed Minerva as Headmaster and usher the school into a different age. He saw no future where he and Severus would sit and look back on the days of their victory as figurehead and closest adviser and reminisce on all these difficult decisions and dark moments and broken souls.

War was dangerous. People died. People were lost. Albus was under constant threat, and perhaps the only person in a more dangerous position was the man asleep before him. Therefore, he would not prescribe fantasies to Severus like they could fix all of this, like it would make it any better. He would just encourage Severus to focus on the present, and deny him an imagined future as well as a real future.

Severus deserved a future more than anyone else, a future not defined by Voldemort or Dumbledore, a future where he could define himself.

But.

_There is no one else_.

And Albus would not endanger him further nor burden him further with talk of how he cared for Severus. What good would that serve, if Severus really knew? To wake him, and to tell him, now, and then send him away at the next moment of summons would be cruel. It would be nothing more than vanity and something Albus would not entertain. Severus did not deserve to know that someone could love him so dearly and still find it within themselves to send him away to someone who tortured on a whim and killed for entertainment, and to do so, and to have done so thus far, with such detachment.

He let his hand drop away. Lingering now was unfair. The boy seemed deep in sleep, still and restful, so Albus considered it safe to speak. Severus would never remember the words and even if he did, he would believe him them to be a dream - and maybe that would bring him comfort, but Albus could not pretend to know. "I do care, Severus. More than you know." His voice trembled with determined emotion, "I wish it was different. I wish I had a choice. If I did have a choice, Severus, dear boy, if I did have a choice…I would send someone else. Anyone else. Anyone but you."

But then, after all, for someone so light, and so benevolent, and so good…Albus Dumbledore told a lot of lies.


End file.
